RSS wants Ram temple issue solved before 2017 UP elections

Mangalore Today News Network

Lucknow, June 22, 2015: There is renewed clamour for a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in its internal meeting on Sunday, made it clear to all its wings that the Ram temple issue should be brought to the forefront in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"We need to intensify the Ram temple movement before the 2017 elections. A meeting would be held in Ayodhya in the second week of July on this issue. I am not ready to face the wrath of the people as they had voted for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections with the hope that a temple would be constructed in Ayodhya during its rule," Mohan Bhagwat, RSS Sarsanghchalak, was quoted as saying to a section of senior RSS, Bajrang Dal and BJP leaders in Varanasi.

He was addressing a closed-door meeting at Nivedita Shiksha Sadan in Mahmoorganj area. Bhagwat’s statement came when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been silent on this issue so far, was presiding over a Yoga session in the national Capital to mark International Yoga Day. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had said last month that they were short of numbers in the Rajya Sabha to take any decision on the Ram temple, was presiding over a Yoga session during the same time in Lucknow.

But Kalraj Mishra, Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, who was present at the RSS meeting in Varanasi, told newspersons that they were in the process of drawing up a strategy to pave the way for the temple.

"Ram temple is our identity. We cannot leave it at any cost. This issue will be taken up after we put together a proper strategy. And we are in the process of fine-tuning that strategy," he said.

Interestingly, Mishra had avoided questions on the Ram temple till recently.

Bhagwat also expressed his displeasure with the way central ministers and BJP leaders were making contradictory statements on issues important to the Sangh Parivar.

"It is a matter of concern that they are contradicting each other every now and then. The BJP-led government will suffer more because of its own people and less because of rivals. All these are sending negative messages to the masses. The government should have assessed its first year and tried to understand what went wrong. The haste with which the Centre tried to bring the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Bill 2015 has annoyed farmers of the country," he added.

Although Bhagwat didn’t take the name of Rahul Gandhi, who has extensively travelled across the country and met farmers to convince them that the land bill was a tactic used by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government to snatch their lands, he said Modi’s rivals have succeeded in their plan.

"The rivals of the Central government have succeeded to a large extent in convincing farmers that the land bill was harmful for them. The government shouldn’t have taken this decision in a hurry," he said.

Bhagwat asked the RSS and other wings of the Sangh to keep a watch on the government and tell BJP leaders where they are going wrong.

Sources told Mail Today there were 22 Sangh leaders in Bhagwat’s meeting. Some of them were active during the Ram temple campaign in the 1990s and were also present in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was brought down on December 6, 1992.

Interestingly, Bhagwat had told RSS workers on Saturday that they should stay away from politics.

"You need to be disciplined and patriotic. It would also be better to stay away from politics and power. But the centre should work to fulfill all the promises it made before the elections and complete the schemes it had announced in recent past," he said.

When asked if there was any progress in the Ram temple issue, Sharad Sharma, spokesperson of the Ayodhya chapter of Vishva Hindu Parishad, told Mail Today that they have once again called upon people to donate stones for the temple.

"A meeting of the VHP was held in Ayodhya on June 16 in which it was decided that we should call upon our supporters to donate stones for the workshop where artistes have been building columns for the temple. We had sought stones in 1989. Now we need one lakh square feet of stones to complete the remaining construction," said Sharma.

UP BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said: "The BJP is clear that there would be a magnificent Ram temple. It has to happen this way or that."

"I would not like to comment further at this stage because the case of Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid is on in the Supreme Court," Pathak said.

 

Courtesy: Zeews